EDINBURG — The state of Texas rested its case Tuesday afternoon in the trial of a 34-year-old Mercedes man accused of stabbing a 16-year-old to death last September.
The announcement followed four days of testimony and evidence from state witnesses in the case against Fidencio Castillo Cosme, who is accused of stabbing Armando Torres IV to death on Sept. 28, 2020.
Fidencio is charged with murder, as is his brother, 37-year-old Juan Jose Cosme.
Both men have pleaded not guilty and Juan is awaiting trial.
The proceeding has been beset with late disclosures from the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office.
On Monday, this resulted in two Texas Department of Public Safety forensic analysts who tested and interpreted DNA in the case not being allowed to testify. This came after the state notified the defense of a blue binder full of notes the analysts used in compiling the reports they would’ve used while on the stand.
The state turned that binder over Monday, on the third day of trial.
That prompted Fidencio’s attorney, O. Rene Flores, to ask for a mistrial, which state District Judge Noe Gonzalez denied.
Tuesday morning saw a similar scene.
The state disclosed then that they had spoken with Torres’ best friend Sunday.
Torres had been on his way to the then 15-year-old’s house the day he was stabbed to death, which happened nearby where the Cosmes lived.
Testimony and a video-taped statement by Fidencio after his arrest have shown that he and his brother saw Torres and another person, later identified as his best friend, in an alleyway behind their house early in the morning a few nights prior and confronted the teens, believing they were casing their house for a robbery.
The best friend — a 16-year-old The Monitor will identify by using the pseudonym of Miguel, which was adopted by the Mercedes Police Department during its investigation — had been subpoenaed to testify last Thursday.
However, his mother testified that he ran away the night before he was set to take the stand. She said he was having a hard time with his best friend’s murder.
On Tuesday, Flores and his co-counsel, Mauricio Martinez, learned from Assistant District Attorneys Jay Garza and Vance Gonzales at 10:31 p.m. Monday that the prosecutors had spoken to Miguel on Sunday. Miguel told prosecutors that a few nights before Torres’ murder the pair had ran into that alley behind the Cosmes house after seeing police patrolling.
The prosecutors disclosed that Miguel also told them about the confrontation with Fidencio and Juan that night.
Like on Monday, Flores then asked for a mistrial which Gonzalez again denied.
Flores had asked for the mistrial because Mercedes police investigator Daniel Longoria is the officer who had interviewed Miguel after the murder.
The remedy for the late disclosure, Gonzalez said, was to call Longoria back to the stand so the defense could cross examine him about the conversation the prosecution had with Miguel.
Since he was the last witness the jury heard from, prosecutors called Longoria back to the courthouse Tuesday morning.
However, a couple hours later, the jury got to hear from Miguel himself — he had come to the courthouse.
His arrival put a pause on the cross examination of the lead investigator in the case, Jose Hernandez, who has been with the department for two years and has a total of four years of law enforcement experience.
Flores had been questioning Hernandez on why he didn’t follow up on multiple reports of the teens being in the alleyway a few nights prior.
Hernandez said it wasn’t important and that the Cosme brothers did not file a report. Juan, however, alleges in his video-taped statement that he had gone to the police department to report it and had been kicked out of former police chief, Dagoberto “Dago” Chavez’s office, according to the lead investigator’s testimony.
Hernandez, however, said he had no knowledge of that happening.
When Miguel took the stand, he testified that he had been in the alleyway with Torres a few nights prior because at around 1 a.m. they saw police and knew they were violating the pandemic curfew for minors in place at the time. They were trying to hide, Miguel told jurors.
While in the alleyway, he said how Fidencio came out to confront them and called out to his brother to grab a machete before the men then chased the teens away.
Miguel testified he was terrified and they both ran to his house before Torres later left and returned to his home, which is a 10- to 15-minute walk away.
Miguel told jurors that he provided this information to police on the day of the murder and also shared it with prosecutors before the trial.
He also explained to the jurors that he did not come to court last Thursday because he did not want to remember the events of the day Torres died.
After his testimony, Hernandez, the lead investigator, returned to the stand and he was followed by Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Enrique Longoria, who detained Fidencio after the stabbing and turned him over to the Mercedes Police Department.
The state’s last witness was Torres’ 17-year-old twin sister, Amy Torres.
She told the jury about seeing her brother the night he said he was chased, and told the jury how Sept. 28, 2020, seemed like a normal day until she got a call from a family member about her brother and knew something was wrong.
She had been told to come to the scene.
“I felt that something wrong had happened. I had to get there as quick as I could,” she said.
On her way to the scene, she told jurors how she saw a man she later learned was Juan.
Amy also told jurors how she saw her brother’s body.
“It’s not something y’all would want to see,” she said.
Amy, who remained composed throughout questioning, was close to her brother.
“Yes, super close. He would tell me everything,” she told jurors.
The trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday morning with the defense presenting its opening before calling witnesses.
